Divine Derivation
by GoWithTheFlo20
Summary: In his seventh year, James Potter seemingly, overnight, matured and, as the story went, Lily Potter found herself slowly but surely falling in love with him. Harriel Potter finds herself retracing her father's path and comes to many startling conclusions. Angels aren't that innocent. There're sympathies to be had for devils. And free will carries many a soul to hell. Nephilim!Harry
1. Chapter 1

**Full Synopsis: **

James Potter had once been a conceited, arrogant bully until his seventh year. Seemingly overnight, the boy matured and, as the story went, Lily Potter found herself slowly but surely falling in love with him. When Harriel Potter finds herself retracing her father's path, she discovers what happened to him all those years ago, what it means for her, and exactly where she fits into the great ineffable plan. Along the way, she comes to many startling conclusions. Angels aren't that innocent. There're sympathies to be had for devils. And free will carries many a soul to hell.

**Tags/Warnings: **Fem!Harry. Nephilim Harry. Strong AU. Slash side pairing. Biblical discourse and philosophy. Dad!Michael. Parental uncle!Gabriel. Voldemort died the night he attacked the Potters (Will be explained/explored in the fic). Slow burning. Slow moving. Heavy Angelic lore. Team Free Will! _Tags to be added._

**Pairings: **Harry/Jack Kline. Castiel/Dean. James Potter/Lily Potter. Michael/Lily Potter.

* * *

…_Six Months ago__…_

Petunia Dursley's P.O.V

Contrary to popular belief, Petunia Dursley had, once upon a long time ago, treasured her niece Harriel Potter dearly. She had always been a woman of family virtue. Prizing nothing more than a well-cared for home, hearty food and hopefully, if fate was kind, the sound of many pattering feet running about her own legs, she was a modern-day Martha Stewart. Always proper. Always prim. Always mannered. Everything in Petunia's life had been a garden of roses elegantly and diligently cared for. A thorn in the shape of a debt? Dehorned. A withered stem in the shade of insecurity? Cut off. Rotten roots with the rancid smell of meagreness? Pulled free and thrown out with the rest of the rubbish.

Yes, Petunia Dursley would have been happy with a simple home, a gaggle of kids, and a blissful married, long life. It was all she had ever wanted since she had played house with her sister Lily when they too were young. Lily had always pretended to be the doctor, or the vet, or an archaeologist on their next big adventure, but Petunia? Her game had always been the same. The housewife with the pretty pink apron and a thousand dolls that were all her dear babies. It appeared, to Petunia at least, that her life was a river rushing in one direction, and everything had been leading up to three simple things. A house. A husband. Children. Was that so much to ask for?

However, fate was not kind, and destiny had a very much different plan than her misty childhood dreams. In her late teens, tip toeing into her early twenties, Petunia had thought she was well on her way to that dream life. She had met Vernon Dursley five years prior, back in school, her sweetheart even then, and now, out of school and taking their first tentative steps into adulthood, the two had tied the knot at the age of eighteen in a little private ceremony. Swiftly, everything fell into place. Vernon got a good, well paying job at the local drill company, Grunnings, as an administrator, the mortgage on a little suburban home had been secured, and finally, at the age of twenty, Petunia's stomach began to swell.

Bringing her beloved Dudley into the world was the singular most spectacular accomplishment Petunia had felt she had, or ever would, do. Her precious baby boy. So chubby. So pink. With ten little fingers and ten little toes. _Perfect_. Her Dudley was perfect. For the first three months he was home, Petunia's life was perfect too. Everything, and so much more she could never have imagined, exactly as she had dreamed for it to be. Then, on the 31st October, the twinkling doorbell by the side of her perfect door, on her perfect house, in her perfect life, rang and nothing, absolutely nothing, would ever be perfect again.

Petunia remembered the half snore, half grunt Vernon gave from his side of the bed as he rolled over, the bed creaking under the weight he was slowly but surely gaining, still asleep despite the incessant ring of the doorbell. She remembered doddering downstairs, tightening the sash of her dressing gown, rubbing crusty sleep from her eye, and holding in a broken yawn as she shuffled her slipper clad feet to the front door. She remembered peaking out the looking glass, seeing nothing but the starry dead cold night and the hazy shadow of the house over the street.

She remembered, still half asleep herself, pulling away, backing towards the stairs to slumber once more, when the doorbell went again. She remembered huffing, thinking this was all some poor joke by a neighbors errant teenager as she stormed back towards the door, pulled and yanked and twisted locks and deadbolts as she flung the door open. Most importantly, Petunia Dursley remembered the confusion when barrenness met her, and then, exactly then, she had looked down.

_Now, she wished she never had. She wished she had left it there. To freeze. To Die. _

Harriel had been such a pretty baby. Beautiful even. Pale and rounded, rosy like an ebony haired cherub. The child looked more at home on a renaissance fresco then she did swaddled and dumped on Petunia's doorstep. Slowly, as if this was just another dream, Petunia remembered bending down to the little angelic baby, with eyes too green and hair the colour of spilled ink, and sorrow, soul crushing, heart stopping, crippling sorrow had grasped Petunia right in her core as realisation came settling down upon her like a sheet of icy rain.

It was no lie that Petunia was not as close to her sister Lily after the girl had been… Accepted by that… School. Nevertheless, despite all the arguments, the spats and curses and family holidays ended in slamming doors and yells, Petunia had loved her sister. She really had. Irrevocably. Sisters, well, they could fight and scream, go months without speaking, but still, never once, was the love not there. So, to see this babe, with a little paper note attached by safety pin to her blue blanket proclaiming Harriel Potter, it was with profound grief Petunia greeted those babe's eyes that unarguable belonged to her sister. Lily was gone. Just like that. Gone. Her daughter would not be here otherwise.

Before she knew it, still on the doorstep, Petunia remembered how tightly she clutched the babe to her own chest, tears leaking down her sharp cheeks. With three steps back and a shove, the door shut behind the pair. Petunia didn't remember going to the kitchen dining table, nor sitting down, or how long she was there, staring down at the face of the child with a nasty cut on her forehead, but she did remember seeing Lily there. That was the sweep of Lily's lashes. Lily's dimples. Lily's nose. Petunia thought she may have fallen a little in love with the innocent baby then. Lily. Lily. Lily.

However, something… Something felt… Wrong. No. Not wrong. Different? Strange? Off? Harriel's skin was a little too pale. She felt a little too hot to the touch. And there, in the glimmer of her eye, was a sort of intelligence that should never be in a babes eye. Petunia remembered shaking it off. The wind outside was picking up, rattling the windows and howling in the open chimney, and lost in her grief, this feeling of uncertainty, and the bubbling coil of fear raising its ugly head from the pit of her gut, could be easily brushed away.

That was until the light bulb of the kitchen shattered with a loud pop and rained down glass. Shrieking, Petunia remembered curling her body over the babes. She remembered the pop, pop, pop, of the light bulbs exploding throughout the house, the violent and unnatural clatter of the wind as it swirled around the house, beating at brick and mortar until Petunia had been sure, so utterly sure, that the very house would crumble down upon them that very moment.

Scrambling up from the table, hitting her knee so hard she was sure she nearly dislocated the knobbly joint, Petunia remembered how she had tried to run, upstairs, to her husband and her own child. She remembered vividly the force of wind, hot like the babe she was holding, that sent her sailing backwards, right into the dark, pitched mouth of the kitchen. She remembered seeing a light, hot blue so light it was nearly white, bright, so bright it nearly blinded her, right by her breast and, confused, scared, alone, Petunia, breath jagged and notched in her chest, had glanced down, pulling the babe away from her cradled arms and heaving chest.

Harriel's eyes were glowing. Not shining with tears. Nor with a merry twinkle. Glowing, like stars, blazing, and brilliant, and intense, and white and hot and _wrong_. Vernon's hurried and lumbering footsteps barely broke through the piercing scream of his wife, the sound of Dudley wailing in his nursery playing fiddle to the hectic opera of that Little Whinging house in Surrey on that cold, dead night of October 31st.

So, yes, Petunia had adored her niece once upon a time. All for about an hour. Before she knew it for what it was. _Wrong._ It may look like her sister. It may look like every other person out there. It may walk and talk and laugh like any other child, but it was not. It was something other. Not like them. Not a witch either. Petunia knew her sister, that horrid boy she had been friends with, Snape, and this… Whatever this thing was, was nothing remotely like her or him, or anything else Petunia had ever seen before.

_It wasn't human._

* * *

**A short little prologue to test the waters. So, what do you think? **


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER I: A GOOD GIRL.**

* * *

_SNAP._

Little Harriel Potter was not a normal baby. She knew that from an early age. In fact, for a baby, she seemingly knew an awful lot, and yet, frustratingly, never enough. This world she found herself in, these people around her, everything, right down to news channel where they placed interviews of the current winners of Big Brother before the war correspondents of far flung places being bombed, seemed so utterly confusing to her. They went out and about and spent hundred on machines for coffee, and yet, groused and moaned over how much they now had to pay for plastic bags. Doctors could transplant hearts and organs, reattach limbs and bitten off fingers, and yet, some individuals still proclaimed homosexuality as a disease. Some smiled and preened right at your face, only to turn around and whisper how much the other person annoyed them as they went and bought the very same perfume the other was wearing. Yes. Confusing indeed.

Harry, as she would come to be called, didn't understand a lot of things about a lot of subjects, and people, humans, well, they were the most confusing to her. She didn't understand why uncle Vernon would report their next-door neighbour to the housing council for parking a centimeter outside his parking space, but, Harry knew, he went around when he came home from work and key'd the neighbours cars. She didn't understand why the men who knocked on the door, the ones coming to preach about a man called Jesus, would say they could save them from sin if the Dursley's came to their church, but Harry could see from a single glance, as she did with everyone, that the shorter one was cheating on his wife with her younger, still a minor sister, and the taller one with a beard fantasized about strangling women.

Harry didn't understand why aunt Petunia would hide her empty wine bottles in the kitchen cupboard underneath the sink before Vernon got home, chewing peppermints to hide the alcohol on her breath. She didn't understand why the man from over the road, the one she saw driving a corvette from the kitchen window, had not turned himself in to the police for the child and mother he had ran over just last year, and yet cried himself to sleep every night in regret. She didn't understand why the woman who delivered their milk hadn't been caught yet for stealing money from her customers. She didn't understand why the paper boy felt so bad for dreaming of sleeping with his mother. She didn't understand why the mother from over the road was pressuring her daughter to 'get rid' of the baby she was currently pregnant with when she, herself, had given birth at a very young age. Harry, in short, didn't understand any of it.

_None._

Yet, she supposed, that came a lot latter, all those misunderstandings and confusion and riddles that made humans... Well, human. No. Harry's first tentative confusion came from something every human baby grasped swiftly and tightly, something so fundamental to life, and without it, there would be nothing.

_Language. _

You see, baby Harry, when she first began to babble and formulate words, did not speak English. She didn't speak Russian. French. Mandarin. Spanish. There was no Dada or Mama for Harry. No teddy or blanky, or hello or bye-bye or peek-a-boo. She wouldn't find out for awhile that the language she spoke was not of this land. Not of this plane of existence, really. No. Baby Harry spoke Enochian and that, perhaps, was the first step down a long and slippery slope.

Perhaps, saddest of all, while many babies asked for their mothers or fathers through mangled forms of their names, Harry could only remember the barest flash of orange hair or a bright grin, before she remembered a flash of putrid green and nothing else, something there, but blocked, or for food or drink with a startled cry for bot-bot, when aunt Petunia looked at Harry, dumped in the cupboard underneath the stairs, when she remembered the baby was there at all on the rare occurrence, Harry only asked for one thing.

"Boal U Ahe?"

Of course, aunt Petunia couldn't understand her, the older woman likely thought she was just babbling, just as Harry couldn't really understand the language she spoke in return. Nevertheless, Harry, even at such a tender age, was smart, and she understood enough of the curl of her aunts lip, the hooded eyes that were as keen as a glinting knife, the tightness of her face, that Boal U Ahe was not there. It never would be. Harry would ask and her cupboard door would be slammed shut, and she would be left to the darkness. No. Boal U Ahe was not here. Her aunt or uncle had none to give. Boal U Ahe? _Love?_ No. Harry would not find that for quite some time.

* * *

_SNAP._

Inevitably, what often follows after confusion is realisation, and Harry came to her own quickly. She was not like the others around her. She was not like them at all. This realisation didn't make her upset. Neither did it make her angry. It simply… Was. The sun shines in the sky. There is sea and land. Harry was not normal. One. Two. Three. Simple.

Dudley was still plump, couldn't lift his head, dribbled on himself and could not speak more than ga-ga's or burps, when Harry began to walk, talk, understand and speak English. Five days after she was first dumped on that cold doorstep, being locked up in that cupboard for most of it, Harriel Potter was the size of a six-year-old, and as eloquent as any other person out there. It seemed… Practical. Logical. Petunia didn't seem to like her very much, couldn't understand her, and she thought, perhaps naively in hindsight, if she was big enough to speak properly, to go around unaided, her aunt might like her. She might give her Boal U Ahe. Love her.

So, she wanted it. And when Harry wanted something hard enough, it happened. She was, however, a little confused on why Dudley stayed so small and vulnerable. Couldn't he grow himself as she could? Perhaps he didn't want to. Perhaps he liked being a baby. Harry thought she might have liked it too, growing up that way, slowly with time to enjoy it, but, well, aunt Petunia already loved Dudley, Harry could hear the older women singing him to sleep at night, pretty songs of ducks and rainbows, farm animals dancing, and Harry, little orphan Harry wanted that. So, she grew.

Still, when, on the fourth night aunt Petunia closed the door on a six-month-old baby and opened it to a smiling six-year-old, she still wanted some childhood to enjoy after all and she still had so much to learn, on the fifth days evening, Harry didn't get a smile like she thought she might. Nor any laughter. Her aunt shrieked like a magpie shot out of the air, slapped the door shut with a thud, and rushed for Vernon.

They started to nail crosses onto the wall that day. Vernon read over a big book, thick paged and gold leafed, new from the bar-code sticker still pressed onto the back, right over her cupboard door. Sometimes, he would end his little speech with a sprinkle of water on her forehead. The first time it had shocked her, the cold water, and when she recoiled, Petunia began to cry. Harry made sure not to flinch again. That was the day the locks came too, right down to the floor of her cupboard door.

When she heard aunt Petunia singing to Dudley that night, Harry cried for the first time. It was unpleasant. Wet. And it hurt. Not physically. It was a strange kind of hurt. One right in the middle of her chest. Pulsing. Aching. As if someone had their hand right in her sternum and was squeezing something awful. In truth, Harry had checked just to make sure there wasn't anything stuck in her chest, and she only cried harder at the pale unblemished skin. Everything was confusing. Nothing made sense. There was no love and she would get no songs.

That's when the voices came. Many. Floating around her. _Inside her._ Some spoke so fast she couldn't understand them. Some were so deep the vowels were hard to make out. Some flushed over the others like a tide lapping at a rocky shore, a kittens lazy tongue flicking. And then _his _voice came. Soft, gentle, it took the pain away as he… Yes, he was singing. Not in English. Not in baby babble. In the words Harriel knew almost instinctively. Enochian. He sang and he sang and he sang and Harry listened. She listened to it all.

That was the day Harriel realised she wasn't alone. She heard the stars, and they sang, and they were _beautiful_.

* * *

_SNAP._

Sometimes the voices came and went, or as Harry had come to call them, the stars, and the singing star only came rarely. However, she listened. Harry wanted to be a good girl, and she had heard aunt Petunia say to Dudley that good boys listened and ate their food as she fed him at her hip with a warmed bottle. Aunt Petunia didn't give her food, but, Harry thought, if she showed aunt Petunia she listened, she too might be a good girl and would get the smile and hug and jiggle Dudley got when he finished his bottle.

So, when she listened and heard a voice say that a man walking up the road was going to be run over in her very street, on Sunday afternoon, at exactly twenty-six minutes passed three, and for someone called Aziraphael to collect him, whatever that meant, Harry thought she might be an even better good girl if she didn't _just _listen.

The man in front of the zooming car was slack mouthed and wide-eyed when a six-year-old little girl appeared next to him with flutter. He didn't do anything as she took his hand, his palm sweaty and slick with cold, but he did intake a jagged breath when Harry's shadowed wing furled around him. The screech of tires rang out, and with her outstretched hand, the car slammed into her, metal crushing around her fingers, bumper folding around her wrist but going no further, the rear end of the car bouncing up at the sudden stop.

When the front of the car began to leak plumes of white smoke, but the tires no long revved, and the driver's seat door sprung open, someone stumbling out and saying 'oh god, oh god, oh god', Harry shook her hand free from the bungled car, folded in her wings and smiled up to the man who seemed to have a very pressing problem with his flopping jaw.

"Harriel, what are you doing out here!?"

Harry glanced behind her and saw her aunt, quickly followed by her red-faced uncle, marching towards her. Harry grinned widely. Did they see through the living room window? Are the happy with her now? The closer they came, the harder and brighter Harry grinned. Her aunt didn't smile back.

"She… She saved my life. Thank you. Thank you! You're an angel!"

Her aunt laid a hand on her shoulder, tugging her away from the crying man. Why was he crying? Wasn't he happy? And why was her aunt's grip so tight?

"Oh, she did, did she?"

Harry looked right up at her aunt, right at her face, and her tight skin was back. Pale. Stretched. Her jaw twitching. Harry didn't like that face. She didn't like it at all. Harry's smile fractured like a broken mirror, all spider webbed and cracked.

"Am I a good girl now?"

Her aunt ignored her, pushed her towards Vernon, whose own hand replaced her aunts.

"Get back in the house. Now."

Her uncle dragged her back towards the house as the man began to ramble at her aunt, and Harry let him. She had been wrong. People weren't confusing. Being good, or trying to be, was confusing. She had thought, really thought, that stopping that man from dying, for dying seemed to be something universally loathed by everyone, would make her aunt happy. Proud.

It only made her aunt hate her more.

* * *

_SNAP._

Harriel had been with her aunt for exactly three months, twelve days and seven hours when she did something solely for herself. Not to be a good girl. Not to get her aunt to like her. Not for anything or anyone but herself. Well… Perhaps she had done it for Mrs Hazel too.

Mrs Hazel was their elderly neighbour. She smelled of boiled cabbage and baby powder that made Harry's nose itch, and she wore bright paisley dresses that hurt Harry's eyes, and sometimes, when she spoke, her false teeth would clatter in her jaw until Harry would end up with little bits of spit splattering on her face when the woman talked to her. Nonetheless, despite all this, the bad smell, the eye watering clothes, or the continued swiping of Harry's face she had to do to wipe off spittle, Harry liked her.

When aunt Petunia left Harry in the back garden, when her aunt said she didn't want to see her face that day, and she sometimes forgot Harry was out there and locked the door and didn't come out or unlock the door for days, well, Harry thought she forgot, why else would her aunt do such a thing? And if she appeared back in the house before her aunt unlocked the door, she would only scream and throw Harry back out again and she would be left outside longer, Mrs Hazel would come out and talk to her from over the low fence of the back garden.

She'd tell her tales of heroes and damsels, give her berries and nuts, raspberries being Harry's quick and most trusted favourite. Mrs Hazel had tricked her once with lemon, and Harry was determined never to taste that foul, beastly food again, and if she should ever come across those evil yellow spheres, she would burn them all, but Mrs Hazel made up for it when she would give her little boiled sweets that tasted of, what Mrs Hazel called, _caramel. _Oh, Harry adored caramel.

She adored Mrs Hazel too. False teeth, cabbage smell and all. Unfortunately, Mrs Hazel was old. When the ambulance pulled up to her home, while Harry was locked in the back yard worried when Mrs Hazel had not been out all morning, she liked pruning her rose bush at ten and should have been out hours ago, Harry got… Well, her heart seemed to pick up speed, her eyes misted and there was a horrible sinking feeling in Harry's gut. She didn't know what that meant, but Harry never wanted to feel it again.

When the medics, grim faced, rolled out a stretcher with someone laying on it, covered from the tip of their toes to the crown of their head in a long white sheet, their chest not moving, Harry watching from over the fence that cut the front lawn off from the back garden, Harry thought one word. _No._ That was it. Just no.

The medics didn't see her as she appeared besides the stretcher. Harry didn't want them too. Neither did they see her as she pulled the white sheet down to Mrs Hazel's chest. Her face was wrong. Too pale. Her lips were blue. Her eyes white with a thick film. Harry could fix it. She didn't know how exactly, but she knew she could.

_Put your two fingers on her forehead. Find her soul. Her light in the darkness. Think hard. Hold it. Hold it tightly. _

The singing star was back but he wasn't singing anymore, although his voice was just as soft and gentle, as if he was so very far away from her. Still, Harry did what he said. Mrs Hazel's skin was cold. Unnaturally so.

_Don't pull back now. That's it. Steady. Remember her alive. Laughing. Talking. Yes. That's it. Reach out. Grab it. Pull. _

Mrs Hazel's eyes burst back to her pretty blue colour and she began coughing so hard her false teeth came flopping out her thin lips. The medics turned around just as the white light from Harry's hand died and it flopped back at her side.

"What the hell are you doing here kid? Get away… Holy shit. Matt! Matt! She's alive."

The medics came rushing over, shouldering Harry out of the way, focused on a still coughing Mrs Hazel, but Harry saw. She saw the way Mrs Hazel's eyes sought her own out, focusing. She saw the way a smile tried to stake its home on her quivering face. She saw the words her lips mouthed.

_You're a good girl. _

Harry giggled. The voice of the singing star echoed the words, making Mrs Hazel sound like she was speaking with a million twinkling bells. With a wave and a merry little dimpled grin, Harry was back in the garden with a flap of wings.

* * *

_SNAP._

Harriel had been with her aunt for six months now, and she was nearing her first birthday when everything went so very, very wrong. Mrs Hazel was gone now. Her family had taken her away. They put her somewhere called a 'retirement' home, and it scared Harry. She had heard uncle Vernon say he needed to get a new car soon, as the other one was 'knackered', and, almost sorrowfully, he said he would have to retire the old ford. When the old car went into this so-called retirement, they had stripped it of all it's parts. Harry hoped that this retirement home for Mrs Hazel wasn't the same. Would they take her kidneys? Her lungs? Could people survive without their organs and, like with the car, would she be dumped in a junk yard filled with all these other 'retired' humans? Was this what a retirement home was?

Harry hoped not. However, Mrs Hazel had said goodbye to her. Given her a carton of raspberries, a whole packet of caramel sweets, called her a good girl for the last time with a found pat and stroke of her ebony curls, and she seemed happy to go with her family so, maybe, this retirement home wouldn't be too bad, even if they did take her eyeballs and stomach and put those into someone else like uncle Vernon had put the old fords head lights and exhaust pipe into the new car.

However, without Mrs Hazel around, Harry was left to wander, and now, after hearing a rumour about a curly black-haired child who saved Mrs Hazel from the neighbours gossip, aunt Petunia had locked her inside, not out, and, perhaps, that was the worst mistake. If she had been outside that day, Harry would have missed aunt Petunia doing the laundry. And if she had missed aunt Petunia doing the laundry, Harry wouldn't have noticed Dudley's cot.

The bedding had been stripped; you see. Ready to be washed. Nevertheless, not wanting baby Dudley around the harsh chemicals of laundry detergent, aunt Petunia had left him in his cot as she nipped into the kitchen. What the older woman did not notice was the bars. She had left the side panel down. Dudley rolled. Dudley fell. And Harry's young life took a nose dive with him.

Harry heard the loud thump from her cupboard. She heard the beginning wails of the hurt baby too. She heard aunt Petunia curse from the kitchen. Something about her bracelet being trapped and she couldn't move. Or perhaps Harry was just seeing that through her mind. She wasn't too sure. She saw things sometimes. Still, Harry was only trying to help. That's all she ever had tried to do. She promised. Fluttering into Dudley's merry little nursery, the first thing Harry saw was blood.

Crouching over the baby, still so young and vulnerable, Harry's first thought upon seeing his little stumpy leg bent wrong, something white, bone, sticking out, was that that's what he got for choosing to stay so small and weak and, really, it was a lot safer to be bigger. Still, he was crying, hurt, bleeding, and Harry didn't like it when people were hurt. So, she lifted her hand, placed it over the leg, and like the singing star told her, pulled and pushed from within. The light came, the bone slid back, the wound healed, and little Dudley, though hurt no longer, was still crying so loudly it hurt her ears.

That's how aunt Petunia found Harriel after she had broken her bracelet to free herself from the kitchen sink. Hovering over her baby, her crying, scared baby, hand on his leg, blood on the floor, bright light engulfing the room. Harriel didn't know what to do as she was flung away from Dudley. She didn't know what to do as aunt Petunia's hand came sweeping down and smacked her across the face. She didn't know what to do as aunt Petunia grabbed her shoulders and shook her back and forth.

"Don't touch him! Never touch him! What did you do! Huh?!"

She kept shaking Harry and Harry was confused, she was only trying to help, and Dudley was still screaming, and Petunia was still shaking her roughly, and shouting at her, and-… And… And… She was only trying to help. She was only trying to be a good girl.

"What did you do! Tell me! Tell me now! What did you do you horrid little creature! What did you do! Take it back! Take it back! Take it back!"

And she did. She took it back. Dudley's leg snapped, his wailing growing so high and fast he was nearly breathless, and Petunia was crying, screaming, footsteps were rushing up the stairs, Vernon was there, at the crux of the door, ashen, shouting, and everything was so confusing and uncle Vernon was coming towards her, fist raised, Petunia scrambling for Dudley and she was scared and-

The walls of the nursery burst into flame, hot and red and angry. The house shook violently. Vernon was sent flying, smacking harshly into the wall at his back, cracking the plaster and brick of the wall, shouting as fire licked at his skin before he dropped and rolled away. Petunia was rushing for the door, bleeding, crying Dudley in her arms, and Harriel was scared and there was a burst, the pictures on the wall shattered, the cot exploded, a piece flew and cut uncle Vernon's face and-

Harry didn't know how she ended back up in her cupboard. She thought she might have run away, to the only sanctuary she had or knew of. In her little world, the only place that existed was aunt Petunia's house and garden, and the hazy memory of her parents home, something yellow, a smile, green eyes, red hair, Boal U Ahe, a flash of green, lost lullabies that Harry couldn't remember. Neither did she know when everything stopped, the shaking, the fire, the things flying around the room, perhaps when the singing star came back, humming to her, telling her it was all alright. However, what came next, that night, on the eve of her first birthday, Harriel would distinctly and vividly remember for the rest of her life.

It was the first time someone had ever tried to kill her. Sadly, it wasn't the last.

* * *

_SNAP._

The first thing that seemed wrong was aunt Petunia's sudden interest in her cupboard that evening. After coming back from somewhere, Dudley's leg wrapped in a strange, hard white coat that kept the leg straight, uncle Vernon had dragged her out, hands pinning her shoulders, forcing her to watch as aunt Petunia, from a bag with black letters saying Waterstones, brought out books. Well, one book, the book uncle Vernon had taken to reading, the bible, in all different coloured bindings. Red. Green. Black. All gold lettered and embossed. Through the books her aunt went, ripping out pages, slicking the back with glue as she slapped them on the wall of her cupboard one by one.

By the end, that was all there was to her cupboard, her own rusty cot having been taken out and thrown away, little yellow pages with prayers and testaments stuck to slanted ceiling, damp wall and rocky floor. Everywhere. They even took her light bulb that flickered. They shoved her back in afterwards, locked the door, walked away, but Harry could hear them arguing. Aunt Petunia was saying it wasn't enough. The thing will just pop out when she wants to. The lords words didn't work before, they won't work now and her little Dudders was in danger. She was going to kill them all in their sleep.

Uncle Vernon said to give it the night, see if she was still in her cupboard come morning if not… Well. _Well_. Harry didn't like the way he said that word. Neither did she like the way aunt Petunia huffed and stormed away, muttering that if Vernon wasn't going to do anything to protect their child, she was. Was Dudley in danger? If he was, why did she need to stay in her cupboard? She could help protect him.

_Go. _

Harriel frowned at the singing star. Go? Why would she Go? Where would she go? She didn't know anywhere else. Her aunt was here too, and her uncle, and Dudley, and although they didn't seem to like her very much, scared her sometimes, the puppets on T.V said family was important and you should always love your family. The big yellow bird was right. He knew much, he owned a whole street after all, so he must know lots, and although he shared the same tricky colour as those tricky lemons, he wasn't evil.

_Go now. Run. _

For the first time, Harriel found herself disagreeing with the singing star. No. She was staying right here. Her aunt would see, so would her uncle. She was a good girl and she was only trying to help, and she hadn't meant to hurt Dudley, and her aunt and uncle would see that in the end. They would all see. She. Was. A. Good. Girl.

_Please, go. She's going to try and hurt you. Find Gabriel. He'll see you're a good girl. Go. Now. _

_No. My aunty will see. She loves me. She does. You don't hurt people you love. _

The singing star carried on. Asking. Pleading. Demanding. Harriel ignored him. She sat in her cupboard, pressed against the prickly paper, and she closed her eyes. Harry didn't need to sleep often, once a month, if that, but it had snuck up on her this time, and locked in her dark cupboard, waiting for her aunt to come down and say she was sorry, it was all a mistake, to take her into her arms and hold her, hug her, she drifted away.

Harriel didn't dream. So, when she opened her eyes, in the dead of night, and saw her aunt's shadow standing above her, a black mass looming, she knew she wasn't dreaming. Later on, older, wiser, not the naive one-year-old who thought the big bird from Sesame street was some sort of wise man who knew all, when she would finally tell Jack about this night, she would always say the worst, hardest most painful thing was the smile.

Harriel thought her aunt finally knew, understood, she was a good girl who was trying to help, and she had smiled up to her, thinking this was it. This was when love would come. This would be her first hug, or the first she would remember, and she had smiled and her aunt, standing there, hands behind her back, had smiled back down at her. Petunia had ducked down, beckoned Harriel to her and Harriel had crawled, on hands and knees to her, and the singing star was shouting in her head, but this was it!

_Get back! Don't! It's a trick!_

She crawled over, her aunt produced one arm from her back, spread it wide, and Harriel and ducked in. The woman wrapped the arm around her, squeezed tightly, chin pressing to the top of Harriel's head, ruffling her curls, and for the glorious few seconds it lasted, it was the best, warmest, most loving thing Harriel had ever had. A hug. Just a hug. But it meant so much. Too much. Harriel remembered the way her ear pressed against her aunts bony chest. She remembered the patter of her heart.

She remembered how fucking steady it had been.

Harriel didn't see Petunia's other arm come out from behind her back, neither did she think much of the other arm tightening even further, she didn't see the knife glinting in the moonlight, and it was too late as she heard her aunt whisper two little words.

"I'm sorry."

Pain, biting, cold pain, flared in her back as the knife swung down and slipped in, right by her spine. Harriel screamed. Guttural. More animal than human. Something unnatural in her voice. Her eyes flared blue. She was angry. So angry. Hurt and angry and scared. Her aunt was flung away from her, straight into the living room, her head smashing into the corner of the fireplace. The windows erupted, raining glass everywhere like glittering rain, light bulbs burst, mirrors shattered, walls cracked, lamps exploded, doors blew off their hinges, as something bright burst out of Harriel, wrecking everything in its path.

By the time she was standing, little hand on the knife in her back, pulling, Harry was… Something else. The cut was already healed as the steal slid out, not an ounce of blood dripped. Her aunt rolled groggily on the floor, huffing and moaning, shrieking when she saw Harriel with the knife in her hand, walking towards her.

"Harriel! Don't!"

Her head snapped around, cold blue glowing eyes focusing on Vernon rushing down the stairs. With a wave of her hand, he was a pile of salt on the floor. Petunia screamed. She tried to back away, scuttling on her hands and feet like a crab, pressing into the wall at her back, sobbing, and step by step, Harry came.

"Vernon! Please, no! No! I'm… I'm sorry! Please! I didn't mean it! I-… I-… I-…"

However, it wasn't a baby Petunia was gaping at anymore. Neither was it a delicate, thin little six-year-old. With every step, she grew, burning marks lighting up the floor in growing strides, bigger and bigger until, right there, at Petunia's feet was a tall, long haired, nimble limbed, fully grown woman, looking for all her worth as if she was in her late teens, early twenties, staring down at her with those awful blue eyes. Harriel's head cocked to the side, and Petunia began to sob harder as her hand rose up.

"Please! Please! Please!"

With a click of fingers, Petunia Dursley was no more than a splatter of blood on wooden floor and carpet, a splatter of crimson on a pale, cold face.

_Find Gabriel._

Harriel's head twitched, as if she was looking at someone over her shoulder before she nodded. Her eyes slipped back to evergreen. With a flutter and flap, she was gone.

* * *

_SNAP._

Albus Dumbledore was sitting in his office when the floo call came in from a frantic and panicked Arabella Figg.

"She's gone, Albus! Gone!"

Finishing off marking the last paper, a well-deserved O from a fifth year Gryffindor, Albus dipped his quill back in the ornate ink pot and slowly rose from his chair. Colourful robes sweeping along the stone floor of the headmasters office, his voice was calm and pleasant as he bent down and spoke back into the fire.

"Calm, Mrs Figg, for I fear I may not understand you. Now, tell me, what's happened?"

The flames spat cinders as the glowing face of Arabella Figg spluttered and scrambled before she took in a deep breath.

"The girl! Harriel Potter! She's gone! The police were at 4 Privet Drive this morning after the neighbour rang saying they could hear the Dursley's child crying. Petunia's dead, Albus. Her blood is all over the living room. Vernon's missing, though they found a lot of salt on the stairs. The girl, Harriel, she's gone. They can't find her."

Albus hummed.

"Have you checked Godric's Hollow? The girl has likely ran-"

"I've checked. Twice now. She's gone, Albus! I'm telling you she's gone!"

The twinkle in Albus's eyes died as his face slackened, paling.

"Send for the Auror department. Get a team over to Privet Drive now. Inform them of what's happened, but keep the… Particulars to yourself, Mrs Figg. Do you understand?"

The glowing face nodded.

"I know. You've told me how important it is to… Keep certain things… Contained. I'll call them straight away."

Dumbledore stood, fingers fiddling with the end of his long, grey beard as he regarded Mrs Figg over the rim of his moon shaped spectacles.

"Good. I'll be arriving shortly. I suppose I do not need to stress how paramount it is not only for yourself and me, but for it to be _our _kind to find and retrieve miss Potter, do I?"

There was a long pause before a reluctant sigh.

"I know well enough, Albus."

The fire died and the call ended. Fawkes screamed as he too burst into flames that died to ash.

* * *

_CLICK._

"Hey, kid! You in there? Come on, don't waste good pizza like this."

Jack Kline snapped to, sitting at the long table of the bunker, Sam and Dean Winchester sitting opposite him, Dean leaning over the table, snapping his fingers at Jack's face, Castiel by his side worriedly watching. He blinked for a while, digesting what he had seen before he locked eyes with Dean.

"There's a Nephilim. She's in danger."

Sam snorted out his coke and Dean spluttered with a mouth full of pepperoni, cheese and crust.

"_Excuse me?!"_

* * *

**WOO or BOO?**

**CHAPTER NOTE:** I did say this is a strong, strong AU, so expect much messing around with Harry Potter canon. I've already moved the whole Potter time line ahead about, oh, thirty years lmao, and this, dear readers, is one of the tamer things I'm going to be fiddling with. So if you're a staunch canon supporter, or even prefer your fics with a more Canon feel to them, I'm afraid this fic isn't for you, but I hope you might enjoy it anyway. There is obviously going to be some questions coming too, and why I've moved it along so far, like exactly how Michael managed to have a daughter a year ago when, really, he was in the cage, but, well, please bear with me, the answers will come. I do have plot reasons for all the changes I've made that will become clear later on as the plot thickens.

I also wanted to create a bit of difference between Jack and Harry from the get go. I like to think Nephilims are a sort of pick and mix deal, each one coming out a little different, especially in Harry's case where her mother was a witch. In Supernatural, Angel radio hurts Jack, where, in this, Harry can easily listen in 'her singing stars', and in fact enjoys it. I like to think this is because Jack's father is Lucifer, a fallen angel, and so, that rejection of the angel order, disgrace in a way, sort of bled into his son, (I don't think Lucifer has Angel Radio anymore since he fell, but I could be wrong), where Harry, as the daughter of Michael, still has that link.

I also wanted to give Jack and Harry powers that are singularly theirs, so they aren't two interchangeable characters. Jack, as we have seen, is able to compel people to do things, as we saw when he compelled Lucifer himself to tell the truth. Harry won't be able to do this. I like to think Jack can do this because Lucifer is his dad. Lucifer, the great tempter, compelled angels to follow him and fall, got eve to bite that apple, and spent forty days trying to tempt Jesus, and, again, I think that's a sort of blood gift he passed to his son. Where as Harry's gift, being able to see people's sins from a glance, (this comes into big play later), as Michael's daughter, the very paramount of angels, seems to fit nicely too. It's also a tricky gift, I think, and I like that. Sin is very subjective. What one person sees as a sin, another doesn't, and, personally, as with this fic, I think it all falls down to guilt and regret. In short, if a person doesn't feel guilty about it, or regret it, they won't see it as a sin and, there fore, Harry won't either. That's a blind spot, but as well, she can see peoples darkest secrets in a sweep, and, well, she can use that against them. It's a double edged sword and I think it will be fun to explore that. It also skews Harry's world view, how she views humans, and her feelings towards humanity in general. It's also extremely difficult to lie to someone who can see literal sin. Not impossible, but its difficult. All that is something she's going to have to battle and come to terms with.

**THANK YOU ALL **to every single person who followed, favourited, and of course, reviewed! I really do hope you enjoyed this chapter, and to those new, I hope you enjoyed it too and plan to stick around for this crazy ass ride we're on. If you can, and you see that little box down there, type up a few words and hit send? Reviews keep the mind spinning and the fingers typing! Once again, thank you, I hope you at least smiled in one or two places, and I hope to see you guys next time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Note: **Set after episode 6 season 13, Tombstone: with one change, Jack didn't run away after killing the security guard, and before episode 7 of the same season.

* * *

**CHAPTER II: GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD.**

* * *

Sam Winchester's P.O.V

"So, what do you think about all this?"

Sam Winchester asked the plaid clad back of his brother as they left the open space of the main room and sequestered themselves off into the library. As soon as the words fully left his mouth, he winced. What a loaded question. _What do you think about all this?_

Cas had only just come back, resurrected from the dead… Again, from a place he called the empty. Their mother was still trapped on the other side of the rift, the one Jack had inadvertently torn open from his own birth. Crowley was dead, having sacrificed himself to seal Lucifer in the alternate dimension, the very same his mother was now trapped in. Jack himself was still coming into his powers, Dean weary of whether the kid was truly evil or not. Both brothers were trying to find a way to reopen the rift to save their mother. And Sam? Sam was, as always, just trying to keep his head above the water.

Now, of all times, to add another stinking problem on their already mountain high heap, Jack was having visions of a Nephilim. _A Nephilim_. Additionally, Sam, having lived the life he had, knew, oh, boy did he know, somehow, someway, there was a pattern lurking somewhere. There were no such things as coincidences in a Winchester's life. This was no exception. If Jack was having visions of a Nephilim, then that meant… Something. Something Sam just wasn't grasping right now, and something Dean, with his already full plate, didn't want to even consider existed.

And how did Sam ever so elegantly breach the subject of trying to get Dean to consider the meaning behind this revelation? _So, what do you think about all this? _God, he was a moron sometimes. As Sam thought he would, Dean shrugged his shoulders, plucked up a bottle of Jim Beam Whiskey off a bookshelf he had stashed it in, flicked the cap right off and poured himself a glass.

"What I think is we should focus on what's important and get back to work."

Dean downed his glass before filling it all over again. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Surely Sam wasn't the only one seeing the possibilities here? Jack's birth opened the rift, this other Nephilim could very well reopen it again if they found her. Moreover, from what Jack had said he had seen, the girl needed help. Add to all that that this own girl's birth could have opened a portal to another alternate reality, one that could conceivably be worse than the shit show they had seen from Jacks, and, well, not even Dean could argue for ignorance before he realised they needed to do something. For long, that is. If Dean was anything, it was stubborn, especially when he dug his heals in. Running a tired hand down his face, Sam addressed his brother once more.

"Focus on what's important? Dean, you can't be serious. Jack is obviously having visions of this Nephilim for a reason. If we ignore it-"

Dean cut him off with a tip of his glass, a chug of amber whiskey, and a cocked brow.

"And, as Jack said, she's looking for Gabriel. Let her be Gabriel's problem."

Counting down from ten in his mind, seeing no point in trying to set fire to the already cindering tension in the room, Sam tried to keep his voice as light and tranquil as possible. He supposed he, perhaps, failed, as forced calm translated to condescending.

"She could be important to-"

Dean's glass nearly shattered as he slammed it down on the table between them, the little brass and glass lamp bouncing and clinking from the rock of the table, bracing himself against the edge, elbows locked and gaze steely. Sam crossed his arms over his broad chest. No. He wasn't backing down on this one. If Dean was stubborn, Sam was persistent.

"We already have the literal son of Satan sitting at our dining table, Sam. We don't need another grace-jacked kid loitering around. Let Gabriel take one for the team. I'm sure he can handle whatever little miss zappy has to give."

Sam didn't take his brother's embittered tone to heart. They were tired. They were stressed. They were… Hurting. Dean was like a big cat, when injured, he lashed out with claw and fang despite, or because, the others around him were trying to help. Sometimes, it was best to leave him to lick his wounds in private, but, now… Well, they couldn't afford the time it would take for Dean to drown his sorrows, dust himself off and get back up. As Jack said, there was some rainbow man with a long beard and a firebird, whatever that was, who spoke to fireplaces, hunting the new Nephilim. Yet, there was one person, even in the foulest of moods, Dean was likely to listen to. Sam wasn't above using this to his advantage.

"Cas, help me out here?"

At his desperate glance, Sam saw Cas pull away from staring at the wall. Drawing himself into the room and quietly shutting the double doors behind him, affectively cutting off Jack from this conversation. Sam noted Cas's vacant face. Well, that was never a good sign. The emptier Cas looked, the more dire the situation seemed to be. Plus, the angel had, after hearing what Jack had to say, sent the boy off to his room for a while. Whatever Cas knew, or thought he knew, he didn't want it around Jack.

"Jack said her eyes glowed blue."

Well, that certainly wasn't what Sam had been expecting. He thought Cas might bring up the possibility of the girl reopening the portal. Or, maybe, rally in with a motivational speech about helping the downtrodden and helpless, but, then again, by Jack's report, this girl wasn't _completely_ helpless, was she? Yet, from all the arguments Cas could have waded in with, her eyes turning blue of all things seemed to be the littlest footnote on a dissertation of fuckery. However, Sam knew Cas well enough to know the angel wouldn't be bringing this to attention without good reason. Dean, though, waved him off with a flippant hand, whiskey sloshing up the side of his glass.

"Pfffft. He also said she has a thing for vaporizing her aunts and turning her uncles into piles of salt. I like my sodium levels exactly as they are, thank you."

Sam's eye twitched.

"Her aunt attacked her, Dean. Stabbed her right in the back. She's likely scared and confused and-"

"Oh, preach to someone else, Sam. Who hasn't been stabbed? You don't see me-"

The brash snap of the table between the brothers splintering in two forced them both to jump back as the legs gave out and the table went crashing to the floor. Standing at it's end, face as oddly innocent as it always was, despite him having just broke the table with a slam of his fist, as he teleported between the two brothers, was Castiel.

Strangely, as he took a deep inhale, it almost seemed as if Cas was trying to calm himself as his eyes flickered between Sam and Dean, regarding them both with a keen sort of… Urgency. Yes. Sam thought it might have been urgency. Reading someone like Cas was like trying to play poker with a person who didn't have a face. His voice too gave nothing away. Not that it ever did.

"Both of you are missing the point."

Slowly, Dean stretched out behind him and placed his glass on a bookshelf, keeping his gaze on an obviously, at least if you knew him long enough, ruffled Castiel. Sam coughed and shuffled his feet, uncomfortable by the virtually chastising angel. Now that Cas had their undivided attention, and the two weren't bickering like school kids, Cas broke the silence that had fallen on the trio.

"Have you not noticed the eyes? An angel's grace, when in use in this realm, shows through the eyes. You humans, I think, said it best when you said the eyes are the windows to the soul. It is no different for an angels grace. Jack's grace, when he uses it, shines gold in his eyes. Lucifer's shined gold once too. Before his fall."

Dean shrugged.

"And?"

But, Sam thought, he knew what Cas was getting at.

"Nephilim's get their grace from their angelic parent. Not being created by chuck directly, as with other angels, they take the… Blueprint from their angelic parent. It's theirs, their own grace, but they take the form and substance, design, from their divine inheritance. Like a human child would take their parents genetics, with skin colour, hair colour, size, all that. Grace, to a Nephilim, is a hereditary trait passed down. Jack's father's grace, Lucifer's grace, before his fall, was gold, and so is his sons. As Dean has mum's eyes and I have dads."

Cas nodded.

"Seraph angels, such as myself and others you have met, omit a white light when our grace is exuded. Archangel's, however, were given distinct grace, appropriate for their uniqueness and higher stations in Heaven's hierarchy. Raphael's was shaded lilac. Gabriel, I believe, though I have never seen it personally, has a green tinge."

Dean scoffed.

"Whoop-de-doo. So, this chick has pretty blue lights when Seraphs have white. Is this a jealousy thing? The more colour in their grace, the prettier the angel is thought to be? Because, if it helps, your light is just as pretty as it is Cas and-"

Dean cut himself off this time. Sam, for a silly moment, thought it might have been because, unintentionally, Dean, in a round about way, had just called Cas pretty. As well as insinuating he might be jealous, of course. Dean was ever so good at back handed compliments, after all. Nevertheless, Sam should have known Dean wouldn't care so much about accidental, or purposeful, Sam was getting unsure lately, flirting with the angel. No, Dean reached Cas's conclusion, what he was hinting at, before Sam, and as Dean began to wind down, edging through his words as if they were a mind field, Sam sluggishly felt his gut sinking.

"But if she has blue, where seraphs have white, and only Archangels have colour in their grace, then…"

Sam finished the thought for Dean when it became clear he wouldn't do it himself.

"Her dad is a big shot. An Archangel. But who has…"

And Sam, belatedly, realised _why _Dean didn't want to finish that thought as he came to the end of the thread too, and couldn't bring himself to go further. Silence, heavy and cold and slick like oil, eroded away the room. Sam would describe the dread that came as a slowly approaching train in a dark tunnel. A whistle of wheels. A dot, firefly, in the distance. Closer and closer. Hotter and hotter. A blazing sun at his face. Like any good nightmare, and Sam had his fair share of those, there was no running from it, no waking up when you wished to. All you can do, Sam knew, was wait to be destroyed by it. His stomach full of lead, his feet set in concrete, his mind worryingly empty as it tried to think of everything but what was so clear, the train coming hurtling towards him, and Cas, dear, lovable, oblivious Cas threw him on the tracks.

"You've met him before."

_Michael. _Michael had been the only Archangel, the only angel in fact, that Sam had seen associated with blue. He could still see it, a flare in his father's eyes in the past, the blaze of light filtering from underneath the locked door as they called for Adam, the spark of it in Adam's eyes as Lucifer faced him in that damned cemetery. _Michael. Michael. Michael. _Perhaps if he said it enough, thought it enough, the dread would wash away. It didn't.

Dean was the first to break out of his stupor, violently shaking his head as he began to storm towards the door, going to leave, before he thought better of it and whirled back on Cas, denial scorching on his tongue.

"Hell no! No. Michael? No!"

Sam found himself all too happily jumping ship into the sea of rejection with his brother.

"Michael's been in the cage for years. Jack said this Nephilim is barely a year old. It's impossible."

Cas exhaled a heavy breath. Resigned.

"Not impossible. Improbable? Yes. However, I am not suggesting that Michael begot this Nephilim while he was in the cage."

Dean threw his arms out wide.

"Then how the hell did Michael spring the cage long enough to knock up some woman? And why the hell would he?"

While Dean, clearly, knew Michael better than Sam, Sam had his own fair share of dealings with the Archangel too. From what he remembered, Michael didn't seem overtly hostile to humanity, neither did he seem so full of disdain for the 'mud-monkey's' as Uriel called them, as many other angels had shown their opinions to lay, but there was a definitive divide there. He wasn't openly fond or caring of them either. Michael, well, he ostensibly seemed so preoccupied by the apocalypse that, really, everything else seemed so inconsequential to him. He had a job and he wanted to get the job done.

Sam, as much as he tried to picture it, couldn't see anything, or anyone, diverting Michael's attention away from such a task. And if Michael had broken free of the cage to impregnate a woman, why had he not attacked them? Why had he not tried to kick-start the apocalypse again? Why? Cas pushed on.

"I don't believe Michael _sprung_ the cage either."

Scrubbing at his face, Sam let out a deep breath before he strolled over to a chair and sat down, propping his arms up on his bent knees, hands limply laying between his legs, hunched forward.

"Cas, this is one of those moments where you've got to be less cryptic."

Cas frowned at him, likely wondering how to be less, well, himself. Stubborn Sam, Dogged Dean and Cryptic Cas. What a trio they made.

"It always confused me how… Withdrawn Michael was from the apocalypse."

At Cas's statement, Dean laughed sardonically. Full of teeth, spite and regret.

"Withdrawn? Michael didn't seem so withdrawn to me. He seemed all to happy and cheery about the whole thing. The bastard kidnapped me more than once and tried to force me into saying yes to being his meat suit."

Cas was having none of it, not self-pity, not the anger, not the slight hitch of fear in Dean's voice. None. Well, _fuck_. He must really be in full game mode if Dean's distress, as little as it showed, of this conversation wasn't sending the angel fluttering around the room like a worried mother hen in a beige trench coat. Shaking his head, Cas squared off his shoulders and fixated in on Dean.

"No. Michael had Zachariah and other angels take you and pressure you into saying yes. Tell me Dean, how many times did you actually meet Michael face to face before he took Adam as his vessel?"

Sam silently watched as Dean's jaw rolled, the muscle of his right cheek flexing. For a long while, the silence dragged on as Dean mulishly refused to answer before he finally cracked with a bite to his voice.

"Three."

_Three. _Sam, well, Sam was stumped. Thinking back, it was only three, but Michael seemed such a pressing matter, someone with a presence so big that it eclipsed so much else, so many other people, Sam had always thought there had been… More. But no. Dean was right. Three. Just three. And yet, as absent as he had been, in hindsight, those horrid years of fighting against what they had thought inevitable, everything had orbited Michael and Lucifer like planets around stars.

"Exactly. This is not like Michael."

Cas said, but Sam stepped in.

"Perhaps he didn't feel like being on the front line. Why risk the trenches when you can send your own men there and still get the job done?"

Angels did like using front men after all. Why get their hands dirty when they could get someone else to do it for them? But, then again, that didn't fit _them _did it? The Archangels? Lucifer had been prowling around ground zero since the bastard managed to slip his chains and hop out the pit. Gabriel, as much as he originally refused to entertain the idea of joining in on the big scrap, had faced his brother Lucifer head on when he finally decided to intervene. Raphael had guarded Chuck himself, and personally tried to stop Dean and Cas from stopping Sam from breaking the last seal, and Sam couldn't forget that Raphael had personally led an insurgence into heaven and tried to wrestle control of it from Cas in a civil war of all things.

So, perhaps, Archangels _did _like getting their hands dirty. Too much for Sam's comfort, and often too much for humanities benefit. In juxtaposition to this, Michaels rather… Reserved, if it could be called such a thing, presence during the apocalypse did seem to be the odd man out. Had there been more to it? Cas, as he replied, appeared to think so. And he did a good job of convincing Sam of much of the same with each word uttered.

"Michael is the Viceroy of the Heavenly Host. The oldest amongst father's Archangels. None are more devoted, and none are more loyal. He was commander of fathers army. He led the Heavenly Host in the vanguard on every occasion heaven was drawn to war. In short, Sam, being in the front line was Michael's specialty. It was where he was best. Even during Lucifer's rebellion, it was Michael, as much as he, as I am told, did not wish to engage his brother, who first flew to meet him in battle. Michael's lack of presence during the apocalypse was noted on both sides. We simply thought he might have been employing a new tactic. However, in light of recent developments, I believe our first assumption was wrong."

Dean butted in.

"So, what? You think he was off doing what exactly? Wooing some poor human girl? Playing house? Yes, because that fits Michael down to a T, doesn't it. I can see him now, standing in the kitchen, little apron on with kiss the chef on it as the misses passes him a cold beer. Regular Joe dad is our Michael."

Cas scowled at Dean, and Sam's brother had the good conscience to scratch at the back of his neck after his little tirade came to an end. Cas's face softened as Dean sighed and rubbed at his eyes. Still, Cas wouldn't drop the subject.

"No, the timing does not add up. Jack says this Nephilim has only recently turned a year old. Even if we consider the length of the pregnancy to gestate, we are only looking at a year and nine months. That leaves years of Michael still being in the cage. I know he has not broken out, as hell would be in an uproar about his escape, and the news of it would not have been kept quiet for long."

Dean clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together in a show of bravado. Sam didn't miss the way his fingertips trembled. Neither did Cas, by the way Sam saw the angel step closer to his brother, offering comfort and support in proximity.

"Then he isn't her father. Simple. There has to be a mistake. Perhaps Jack confused his blues and greens. Some seraph, or Gabriel, you said he was green, right? Maybe Gabriel did the horizontal tango with some woman, and now we have a Nephilim running around and-"

Nevertheless, Cas wasn't about to let Dean write this off so easily.

"Tell me of the times you met Michael."

Dean crossed his arms over his chest.

"You already know them, Cas."

Sam didn't blame his brother for skirting around the topic as if he was playing dodge ball. If there was one thing Dean hated more than talking about his feelings, it was talking about Michael. As much as Sam hated talking about Lucifer. There was a sort of deceptive hesitance to them. You see, your view, your self-identity, took a bit of a dive when you realised you had been born, created, for the sole reason of being a vessel to something bigger and meaner than yourself. It took away the meaning of your life, snipped at it like an overzealous gardener pruning a rose bush. It's not Dean and Sam, it's Michael and Lucifer, and, in the end, how different were they from the Archangels?

Lucifer, the Fallen one, who rebelled against his father in a bid for, what he thought, to be free will and dominion. Sam, the boy who drank demon blood and rebelled against his own father, for, what he believed at the time, to be for freedom to live his life like every other kid out there. Michael, the Loyal one, always there, fighting the good fight, taking his father's word as gospel, quite literally in this case, who, even if he did not wish to kill his brother, would do so because his father said it had to be so and never got so much as a thank you. Dean, their own dad's right-hand man, who too had blind faith for their father long ago, who, again, for all his sacrifice and work, never got so much as a passing recognition from their dad.

Yeah. Sam swallowed. When you looked closely enough, the lines began to blur. Michael becoming Dean, Sam becoming Lucifer, and the song was on a loop they couldn't stop. It was easier to pretend those similarities didn't exist. Easier to turn a blind eye. Sam did it most days too, and surely, he knew, he would continue to do so. Still, there was a… Connection there, as much as neither brother wanted to admit it. Be it because they were their vessels, the similarities no one would ever say existed, or simply sympathy, there was a tie there.

And Sam wouldn't lie, he was noticing it more and more lately. Especially with Jack around. Sam was fond of the boy. Really, truly fond. He knew Jack could be good if he tried, given time, for one simple reason. Jack _wanted_ to be good. However, it was more than that. Jack was… Someone Sam wanted to protect. He wanted to see Jack grow up into the person Sam knew he could be. He wanted the kid to be happy. Sam had known all that from the moment he had seen him in the nursery. And in the dark of the night, when sleep evaded Sam, if he began to question these feelings, if he thought, perhaps, they were another link in the chain connecting him to Lucifer, a bleed over of some sort, and he wondered just how alike they were, if this was somehow something to do with Sam being Lucifer's true vessel, he pushed those thoughts right back down come morning.

Now, Michael had a Nephilim. God knows how Dean was feeling about all this, how he was going to take it, if he took to it at all. Sam couldn't even get a grasp of his own feelings, and, in comparison, he was the emotionally smart one out of the two brothers, so who in hell knew what Dean was going to react like.

"Tell me."

Cas demanded and Dean broke as he always did, in frustration and sarcasm.

"There was that time at Stull Cemetery where you Molotov'd him, before Sammy took him on a bungee jump with no rope right into the cage. Oh, and the time he trapped Adam in a room and possessed him. And, of course, my favourite, where he possessed my father and nearly killed Sam and-"

No. Surely not? What Sam was thinking… Why Dean broke off… No. There was another explanation. Sometimes, the easiest explanation didn't make it true. Even as he mentally denied it all, Sam found himself coming to a stand, locking eyes with Dean as he spoke what neither wanted to hear.

"Time travel. Michael-… Time travel."

Cas gravely nodded, a sharp up and down tilt of his chin.

"Michael is smart. He was known to make contingencies. He would have accounted for all possibilities. His loss in the fight against Lucifer being one."

Sam picked up from Cas, his own scattered thoughts finally jumbling themselves into something linear and coherent.

"He time travelled. He didn't just go backwards that day he stopped me and Dean from trying to separate our parents before we were born. He hopped forward too, likely checking to see if we had somehow still changed the future. Seeing a future where he lost, where he was trapped in the cage, he planned for it. He took over some poor guy, got a woman pregnant, and snapped back to the end fight, knowing full well what was to come. He put on a show about fighting, but it was a play. An act. What I don't get is why? If he knew he was going to lose this fight, why bother in the first place? And how would siring a Nephilim possibly help him?"

Dean reached back for his drink, thought better of it, and snatched up the bottle, drinking straight from the thin neck.

"Nephilim's are strong. Stronger than we thought. We saw this with Jack. I believe Michael may have seen this too. Perhaps he saw Lucifer had sired one and, well, he had a two-fold attack."

Cas said as Dean wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Sam found himself taking the bottle from his brother and taking a gulp himself.

"Two-fold?"

Dean questioned.

"Should both he and Lucifer be destroyed, or otherwise incapacitated, they now both possess children who could carry on their work. If Michael and Lucifer won't battle, or can't battle, at the end of time, during the apocalypse, then they have Jack and, as Jack called her, Harry to step in and finish what their fathers could not."

Sam was almost afraid to ask what more there could be. _Almost. _

"What's the other?"

Cas glanced around the room, as if he was searching for something, someone, or making sure they were alone as he stepped closer to the brothers, his voice dropping in volume.

"Michael has a child. A Nephilim. Jack said she is able to listen in to the angels with no pain experienced that Jack does when he hears them. In fact, if I am not mistaken, Jack said she found great comfort in it. He said she hears this… Singing star most. I believe Michael is talking to her from the cage."

Luckily, if this was true, and this Nephilim could very well hijack herself into Angel Radio, the bunker was filled with spells and runes to stop such listening in from taking place. Nevertheless, not so fortunately, those runes and spells stopped at their front door, and there was a whole network out there for this Nephilim, if she could do it on will, tap into. Worst of all, if Cas was correct, if this 'singing star' was Michael… What the hell was he talking to her about? And how far did talking go from being commands?

"You think he might be controlling her?"

Sam asked, but Cas briskly and quickly shook his head.

"No. Nephilim's are powerful. If this singing star is Michael talking to her from the cage, he has sent her to Gabriel for a reason. Gabriel loves his family. He will protect her. I have no doubt Gabriel will help her get control of herself and get strong enough to master her own abilities enough to protect herself. If she knows how to fully use her abilities…"

Dean shuffled in closer until the trio were nearly huddled.

"Then what? Daddy will say go kill Jack, and we can expect a pissed off Nephilim at our door?"

Cas swiftly discarded this.

"I believe that to be the last scenario. She has Michaels grace, Dean. He is her father. There is no stronger bond then blood and family. You know this. Both of you do. Michael now has a bodied link into this realm. The cage will be weakened through this connection."

Sam swore as the horrid little jigsaw puzzle all fell into place.

"And with the cage weakened, when this Harry gets the down pat on what she can do through what Gabriel can show her, dear old dad will call her to him and, well, you said yourself, Nephilim's are strong."

The ball dropped and Dean hammered the final nail into the coffin.

"He's planning for her to break the cage and set him free. She's he's get out of jail free card."

Like a game of verbal volleyball, Sam batted back and hit a spike.

"And if that doesn't work, her and Jack can finish what their fathers couldn't and bring in the end of the world."

Tugging on the lapels of his coat, Cas observed each brother.

"Now do you see the urgency? It is imperative we find her before Michael can convince her of anything, or this unknown party can capture her. I also think it is prudent we keep Jack away from her until we discover if, or how much, and to what extent, Michael has been communicating to her."

Sighing, Dean reached over and patted Sam's shoulder.

"Looks like we're on a merry little pilgrimage to England. Sam, stay here and watch Jack. Make sure he doesn't, you know, destroy the world before we can stop this other kid from doing so. One apocalypse at a time, that is all I ask."

Nodding, Sam watched as Dean walked over to the double doors of the library, opening them as he began shouting for Jack, disappearing into the main room and down the hall to the bedrooms.

"Hey, kid! Get back in here. We need to talk. Jack? Jack?"

When Dean called for Jack for the fifth time, gaining no answer or no Nephilim, Sam and Cas looked to each other before they too exited the Library and began walking to Jack's room. Dean met them halfway, a piece of paper dangling from his fingers. Spotting Sam and Cas, he flipped the paper around to show them Jack's writing as he reiterated the hastily scrawled note.

"She's in danger. No time to wait. Gone to find her. – Jack."

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**Yay or Nay?**

**NEXT CHAPTER: **We're back with Harry as she takes her first journey out into the big wide world…

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**UPDATES: **So far for this fic updates are actually coming quite quickly, in a space of two/three days, as I have a lot of inspiration for it and just find myself actually writing without procrastinating for once lol. However, I do know quick updates sometimes annoys readers, so I was wondering how do you guys feel about it? Do you like the quick updates? If not, I can stockpile the chapters and post them once a week, say every Wednesday, as at the moment I'm posting as I'm finishing. Either way, let me know how you feel.

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**A huge thank you to everyone! **Silent readers, followers, favourite-ers, reviewers, if I could, I would give you all a hug, but I'm afraid my thanks will have to do.

**As always, please drop a review if you have a moment, they keep the muses chattering.**


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